Tuesday, July 31, 2007

~you wake up late. like, real late.~you bother to make yourself coffee which you rarely do, and end up leaving it sitting on the counter.~you realize at 115 that you have a 130 meeting, and you still haven't eaten lunch

and you left your allergy eye drops at home and your eyeballs are NOT happy campers.

but, on a happier note.~your budget is updated~you managed to FINALLY order those photos~and you get to see your honey tonight.

so those are all good. :)

last night was also good. good and amusing. we tried a new dish (which was actually better without the basil, though maybe I'll add some spices next time) and then--well, then matt and I ended up sitting on my couch and talking about head injuries and broken bones. and then he thought it would be a brilliant idea to demonstrate UFC moves on me. let me just tell you, we were both half-expecting me to have bruises when I woke up. thank goodness, I don't.

but I do now know about arm bars and knee bars and something about a reversal which earns you a point? yeah. can't you tell how thrilled I am? can't you?!? [exuberance obscured by internet, let me tell you.]

Sunday, July 29, 2007

this weekend i hada) a whole lot of fun.b) a whole lot of sleep.c) some quality kd time.

friday wasn't very fun. well, that's a lie. it was a lot of fun, except for the headache. I still get 'em when it rains sometimes--but at least they aren't migraines anymore!!! matt and i went out to dinner and then drinking with his friends, a good time indeed. it's nice to get to the place in a relationship where you're friends with your boyfriend's friends, y'know?

also, note: do not leave wine glasses where cats can knock them all over the kitchen floor. cleaning up glass early early in the morning is not fun.

saturday I got up for softball and had to leave practice early 'cause I felt like I was going to faint while I was in the field. At first I thought it might be a hangover, but I've never had one that felt like that. so anyway I came home and slept for THREE hours. like, in the middle of the day. I felt somewhat better when i woke up, but still not all better. but like the hostess I am, I trudged on and got ready for the KD progressive dinner. I was the appetizers person, along with Elizabeth.

and a funny thing happened on the way to the grocery store...

I go to get the ingredients I need, and I arrive to the grocery store under a sunny sky. I'm inside, oh, fifteen minutes getting the items on my list, and during this time I hear the rain start--except then realize it's not rain, it's the fake rain noise that they use in the produce department. I check out, and looking through the windows I see TORRENTS, people. TORRENTS. A deluge. An alluvion. A crazy friggin' storm!

I'm stuck though--cart full of groceries, people coming over in a few hours, no umbrella and not a lot of time to spare. So I go through the rain and load everything into my car--and get SOAKED. Like, I looked (and felt) like I'd jumped into a pool fully clothed. And when I arrived home, there were two problems:

1. all of the grocery bags had water in them--which means the boxes for things were pretty much ruined (thank goodness for the lining bags!)2. there was not a drop of water on the concrete of my apartment complex. not. a. drop. which means that to anyone watching, it happened to look just like I'd jumped into a pool fully clothed. rock on.

yikes.

anyhoo, once I showered and dried off, the progressive dinner was fun AND yummy. see, pictures:

and, I liked it that Matt and I were both thinking to ourselves as we were selecting our seat "I hope she/he wants to sit on the bench!" we got to! :) kim and I also enjoyed our little shoe switcheroo.we went out with his friends after dinner, played darts and made friends with the people playing pool. and people seem to be really really keen on asking matt and me awkward questions, it's rather hilarious. they also think we're pretty damn cute--and loved it that I woke up early to go to softball while he woke up early to go to soccer. awwww. I'm excited about seeing these people next week for birthday celebrations!

and, adam and I are forming a one-dimple club. because, well, we each only have one. :)

today was the craziest part of all. well, sleep wise. despite my three hour nap yesterday and my ten and a half hours of sleep last night, I took an hour and a half nap this afternoon/evening. I hope this need to sleep stops soon!

also, my cute loveseat is now up in my bedroom. and since it's so much cleaner, maybe it'll be ready to be a comh on friday. one can hope. :)

Friday, July 27, 2007

for those of you that somehow missed the memo, or didn't read the author description, or don't know me (and in which case, why are you reading? well, whatever floats your boat...) I am a Chemical Engineer. I happen to have lots of research experience--four years and one summer of undergrad research in organic chemistry, two research internships and two years (okay, in a week and a half) at my present job, which is also research. This is in addition to my schooling.

and no, it isn't something that you can tell by looking at me, or even talking to me, necessarily, but it's the case--I know my stuff, or at least the gist. I'm no safety expert, but I have a good handle on the safety concerns for my current job. right? right.

I realize that while I may have a general understanding of your job/field, in most cases I certainly do not know enough to tell you how to do it. And even if I were to hazard a guess at a portion of it, it would likely be mere conjecture.

I get this. I hope you do, too.

so, here's my story. this afternoon, after a yummy lunch of half-price sushi and edamame, I restarted my co-precipitation. and then, due to all of the soda and water at lunch, I decided I'd go to the restroom. I've done my business and washed my hands, and I go to the water fountain to fill up my cute green water bottle (thanks, chris and ariel!).

and time out--before I go on, let's talk about the PPE. Personal Protective Equipment. Things like this:

In the lab, for this particular project, for my PPE I wear the following: jeans, close-toed shoes without heels (usually tennies), lab coat, nitrile gloves, prescription safety glasses. If my camera weren't in my car I'd have someone take a picture. But anyhoo.

So, I'm filling up my water bottle, and this woman, who came from the statistics side of the building, lets out this HUGE sigh. I turn to look at her, and she's going in the door to the bathroom. She says, "hey, could you do me a huge favor?" Of course, I reply "sure thing, what?" She responds in an annoyed tone "Could you not wear your lab coat into the bathroom--you're contaminating everything."

lady, I wouldn't even TRY to do statistics, please don't tell me how to do my job.

Now, I get that she's afraid or concerned or whatever. My labcoat is covered in rusty orange splotches from spills and projectile-solution, which is normal. In the lab you wear labcoats for particularly this reason--so the spills aren't on your clothes and there's an additional barrier between your person and the solution/chemical. however....

since I didn't know who the lady was (hell, she could be one of our eleventy hundred VPs), I said, very eloquently, "umm...okay?" and then decided I could at least educate y'all.

in any well-regulated lab, which any corporate environment will have, the people wearing the PPE are relatively well aware of what they're being exposed to. and if they're comfy wearing their PPE outside the lab, it's probably because you, co-worker, have not a thing to worry about. not a thing!

grr.

it isn't like when I walk into the bathroom somehow all the little particles of chemicals begin to leap and cascade off of my labcoat and onto every single surface. and, it's not like by removing said labcoat I'm suddenly devoid of chemical traces--I guarantee that if I'm wearing the PPE I mentioned above, if my lab coat is "contaminated" then I'm damn certain that I'm going to have to take off more than it to be clean. My hair, my skin, my safety glasses, my pants, my shoes, the exposed part of my shirt--you name it, it's likely harboring that extra-scary stuff. yikes.

and, way to go assuming that because I'm wearing a labcoat it automatically means that I'm working with something terrible. sometimes? they're just splash guards.

so: please, dear readers, should this info be new to you, please take it to heart. there is not a guarantee that a dirty labcoat or a pair of gloves worn outside of the lab means that you're gonna, you know, be exposed, and certainly not in an airborne kind of way. have just the teensiest bit of faith in your co-workers, and understand that it's possible that they know what they're doing better than you do because they do it every damn day.

I mean, unless you're the boss or more seasoned of a comparable position, in which case fine, voice it. But really? yeesh. and, um, sorry for the ranting.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

so, I haven't even eaten either of the plums I purchased last night but I'm already getting excited about it. picture this...

I'm in the grocery store picking up a few odds and ends--hawaiian bread, gouda cheese, a bottle of white wine, tomatoes, feta, carrots, a red bell pepper and apples--when I stop dead in my tracks in the produce section and think "man, what IS that smell?!?"

Detective Carrie thinks--"it makes me think of my grandparents. And summer. And being outside. And holy moly, it's the smell of a plum!"

elementary, my dear watson, elementary. riiiiight.

and anyhoo, I had to go and buy some immediately. also, I love buying produce. it's one of my very favorite things.

this morning seems to be the complete opposite of yesterday morning--I began yesterday with a hefty dose of manual labor okay, well maybe not hefty in the way that means I dug a ditch, but I *did* carry six bottles of ammonium hydroxide into the building and up the stairs and into the lab, and they were heavy. it wasn't the liter of the liquid itself, but those damn glass bottles, and carrying four of 'em at once.

yaaaay for being sweaty. le sigh.

next time? I'll use the cart. Which someone so conveniently informed me of after I had already carried everything upstairs. Except I'm not sure it's a good idea to transport the chemicals in an elevator (closed area + harmful chemicals=bad news bears) but whatev.

also, I'd like to share with you two brilliant ideas I had yesterday. I didn't think they were that novel, but the people in the church meetings thought they were faboo!

1. when trying to get info to quite a few teenagers, send text messages. but do it via email. incase you didn't know, you can send texts via email. teenagers check text messages. they aren't so hot on email.2. a craft idea--you know how you can make paper beads? well, we were talking about crafts for VBS (I'm in-co-charge of crafts, big surprise) and we decided that paper beads were too complicated for a lot of the younger kids, but maybe the youth group would be interested--and here's my fun idea: make sure that each 2 inch piece of paper has a word on it--like courage or intelligence or strength or honesty or whatever--and let the youth pick out the words from the pile. they could be words that represent them, or things they wish they had, or whatever. and then the keychain/bracelet/whatever would be particularly meaningful for them...

kinda makes me want to do it.

also, now I want a tiara. and a vintage apron.

okay, well, I have an apron that's not truly vintage but appears to be so (though look how cute and adorable some of these are!) but I certainly don't have a tiara. I told Matt this yesterday and after he laughed and told me about how his aunt has a set (just like tonya does, it is her brilliant strategy) he said if he knew where to find one he just might go get it, it sounds like I would enjoy it.

and come to think of it? I would. :)

tonight: we're watching harry potter 5 and having mcalisters for dinner, I'm pumped! but first I must endure hours of filtration, co-precipitation and an eye doctor appointment, where they're prolly gonna have to dilate my eyes, yuck. time to let the filtration begin since it's all done stirring, yippee!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

I read the rest of Harry Potter. And it was good. Not what I expected, but well done, nonetheless.

work is making me lose it a little. we don't have enough stirrers or pH meters, so that leaves me sharing them. which is fine, I learned that in kindergarten. but if you combine that with a 1-2pm meeting, it makes for an early lunch and a longer-seeming day for carrie. bleh. I hate eating lunch early.

remember a while ago when I was all--hey, I'm cleaning my whole kitchen, this is weird? and I didn't tell you this but last thursday I decided to take everything out of my kitchen cupboards and organize them, which was also quite strange for me. well saturday I decided to clean my room. like my whole room. like my entire closet and then my room. I got rid of shoes. And almost everything that says it's a size 2 (though I did keep a size 1 dress from old navy that's still plenty comfy, weird, huh?).

yesterday evening after finishing the potter-ness I did something that I'm not sure I've ever done--I vacuumed. my. closet.

now, for those of you who, unlike my friend renee, have never seen my closet, you may be thinking "man, carrie are you a huge slob?!?" the answer is no. I just have too much stuff. enough stuff that last night renee was amazed that I was cleaning out my closet--"carrie, I understand" she said "I've been in your closets!!!"

yeah.

all I need to do now is vacuum the room, move the white couch up there and put away some clean laundry and some purses, sort the stuff for goodwill and vacuum over there too and I could practically host a get-together in my bedroom. this is crazy stuff people. but know what? I kinda like it. but shhhhh don't tell anyone, I'm not sure I'm okay with sporadic intense cleaning becoming a habit. ;)

Monday, July 23, 2007

2. do not under any circumstances check to see how many pages this bad boy holds. the answer is 759, okay? otherwise you might learn things you didn't mean to. you may remember that I'm a skip-to-the-end-er, but this was a book where that wasn't happening. except in looking to see how many pages long the book was, because the text was close enough to the number, I learned something I kinda wish I hadn't. so, I'm not ruining it for you, but I am telling you, there are 759 pages, just take my word for it.

3. i am not the truest form of harry potter fan. i took a break for sushi dinner (to go) and watched a movie and dessert and wine with my roommate and her friend (1408, key lime pie and this scrumptious dessert wine) on saturday and then on sunday I went to church, then had softball from 2-4, then ate dinner with Matt's parents and hung out with him for a while.

none of which made getting harry potter finished any easier.

but tonight? I'll be finishing it dadgum!

4. this one's not harry potter related, but it's still a lesson I learned. I am so so so appreciative of people who realize the nuances in perception, and that how you feel is how you feel no matter how much sense it makes. I'm a lucky girl, I am. Sometimes a frustrated girl, but even while frustrated? Still lucky.

thanks sjg. I see a future username coming from that new moniker you've coined. :)

I'm sitting here on my new eighty dollar couch waiting (im)patiently for the kind ups man to deliver my very own copy of harry potter. someone needs to come up with a term for this--anticipotteration? I dunno. I'm not a word-maker-upper, so sue me.

last night was Mary Alise and Michael's going away thingamajigger. And it was fun. I lurrrve digital cameras! and here are those obligatory pics--which I'll email y'all el pronto, don't worry. the enchiladas were a hit and so was the pinata--ba-dum-ching.

and more fun as well... i'm not sure how well I did with this youtube thing but I'll figure it out eventually, right?

okay, time to get some stuff done. if I can't read some harry potter then I might as well do other productive things. y'know, like cleaning...le sigh.

Friday, July 20, 2007

and we've come to the final post about my atlantic city trip...leaving on wednesday morning.

I happened to wake up at 730 in the morning, and I forced myself out of bed long enough to go tell Rosemary goodbye and let her know that I had a wonderful time, even though I'll definitely be telling her that again on Sunday when we have dinner in Raleigh.

so, after getting up and packing and eating breakfast I had to PRY Matt out of bed. he'd slept on the couch and then moved to his parent's bed in the AM. and he wasn't so keen on moving. I told him he could stay asleep if he wanted, but reminded him that he wouldn't be so happy with himself if he didn't rise and shine.

I even brought Little Bridget in with me to say good morning (though I didn't actually sic her on him like a lot of people do 'cause he can't get mad at an adorable toddler for waking him). And while we're on the subject, let me tell you what--little kid hugs and kisses are the BEST. Bridget gave me hug after hug and four or five extra drooly kisses and they were more than wonderful. It makes me all cheery just to think about it!

after getting the bellhop and the van and saying our goodbyes, tonya, george, matt and I hopped in the car to go see Lucy the Elephant, the world's largest elephant. And it just so happens that she turns 126 years old TODAY! Anyhoo, we took more silly pictures--of tonya and me being elephants--which was tonya's brilliant idea!--(ps when you were little and pretending to be an elephant did y'all do it like that?) and of the couples, too. cute, cute.

in the car we talked about the pH of coca-cola (which I checked yesterday and it's 3.5--dr pepper is about the same) and about how I read in my scientific american that some physicist is trying to figure out how to reduce the amount of head in beer through something or other about predicting the way the bubbles will form. it was interesting, I swear.

and, we talked about music. specifically great big sea. here's a picture of matt singing along to this song, isn't he silly?

and I think I kind of impressed them because I knew all the words to this one. y'know impressed in the kind of way where they're half amazed, half shocked and half impressed. which, yes, I know, is three halves. go with it, k?

I made it to the airport, checked my bags, went through security and had a philly cheesesteak, per trevor's suggestion. and it was yummy but HUGE so I couldn't eat the whole thing. I got a window seat even though I was in group B, and there wasn't even anyone in the middle. They had us turn off our electronic devices, did the safety demo and then had us sit on the tarmac for forty-five minutes before taking off. At least I slept through take-off. :)

and I thought these were beeee-autiful!

Marla picked me up and I got home safe and sound, as did all of my belongings. I hung out with my kitties and watched TV, then talk to my roomie and her friend Heather and even went to bed at a reasonable time. It was nice to relax after my vacay. And I had so. much. fun. :)

Thursday, July 19, 2007

that, by the way, is the song I woke up to on tuesday morning. I mean, I was waking up anyway because we had beach plans, but it was pretty darn cute to wake up and find little bridget in the living room dancing to barbara ann. it's a thing that they do...

so, there was more beach-going. and cute picture taking. but only briefly 'cause we had places to go. and it was a foggy foggy day...see?

cute.

and more cute.

and the boat again--but a different one.

and rosemary, little bridget and trevor building a sand castle.

and pics of kat and devon with their little one and other cute pics from the beach...

this particular day I also actually went into the water for a little while, and dear george the third joined me even though he wasn't keen on it--just to make sure that I got to do all the things I wanted to do while I was in atlantic city. which was very thoughtful of him. :) alas, there is no picture of our venturing into the cold cold cold water.

next, matt and I went to the tyler arboretum in media, pa. we had a lot of fun on our way, save for an unfortunate and miserable trip to wendy's, and once we arrived we saw all sorts of pretty trees and butterflies and nature-ee things. there were even monarchs mating. and we took lots of silly pictures, too. that rock circle is home to snakes and lizards (which we didn't know when we saw it) and in one of the pictures we're in the middle of a maze! matt has more, which I'll post later, and you'll see more on my photo blog asap, but here's a taste...

we drove back to AC and found that in our absence yahtzee had been played, dinner was almost ready and his cousins Big Bridget, Kevin and Stephen had arrived. We ate our spaghetti with meat sauce and caesar salad and went off in search of go-karts.and now? I'm known as a cheater. Apparently I bruised people's kidneys and I will never ever EVER hear the end of this story. ha.

right across the way was a 99 cent store that sold some loverly hats--which I got for all of the ladies, lucky them! We had to hunt down Kat to get her in the picture, so there's one on the boards and one in her room.

Next was the casino. We played slots first, and Matt was up a whole dollar. At one point I was up $16 from playing roulette--27 hit on my first round, and my little purple token was on there. Two things I learned (excuse me for not knowing) 1. you can't take the colored chips with you and 2. when you turn in those colored chips it's called "coloring out." We went to the Taj Mahal next and at the end of the evening I had five blisters on my feet, a HUGE bruise on my knee (I totally bit it on the boards--they were wet and my shoes were not happy about that) and I was down four dollars, but up four jack-and-cokes. I think I came out ahead. :)

we hung out in the room for a while trying to finish off all the beer (since Rosemary looked at Matt like he was crazy when he said he thought we needed more) and I went to bed at 315. Matt and Big Bridget went to Resorts and partied until the sun came up...but since I had to get to the airport and stay awake while I waited for my plane...no Resorts at 330AM for me. I still only got five and half hours of sleep...but it was totally worth it!

about me

i’m a chemical engineer, artist, kaydee, okie, environmentalist, optimist and word nerd. i rescue spiders from indoors, appreciate compliments, distrust people who aren’t at least a little stubborn, love to laugh and have a tendency to tell awfully punny jokes.